My tent in the foreground is luxury compared to the basic shelter next to it, several light and medium grade tarpaulins stretched along a branch that used to belong to the tree you can see. Five families now live in this shelter. They are in for a tough monsoon.
The people in the background are unloading more tarpaulins and blankets for this tent city. It will no longer be a football field. The workers have made a hard trip of many hours to get here, there are many ways to die in Nepal and the jeep tracks into these villages are particularly dangerous. To me these men are unsung heroes. Today there were nationwide meetings which finally mean the big NGOs will fully mobilize. The men in the background have already been working non stop for nine days.
I awake to children singing, there are many offspring in the five families. They are still singing as they peer into the tent of the white man with the ever whitening beard. Their smiles and laughter tell me a story I already know, the story of the real Nepal, far from the corruption, egos and mismanagement which plague this country. The singing of these children is not heard by tourists, they don't come to these places. In fact the map makers are often uncertain what to call these places.
I look at the children and I look at their home. I look at their country. The young nurse Pratima says to me "my mother land is hurting and I don't know what to do"... all I can reply is "listen to the children sing"...
The rebuild of a nation has begun. There is still fear. Was that the big quake? Is there perhaps a bigger one to come? Coming from New Zealand, a shaky place, all I know is that we don't know. Regardless of the future the now has a big death toll. Yet here in the real Nepal the children still sing.
My heart belongs in these remote areas even if often I have to take it elsewhere. In a couple of days I'll write about the leopard, he is doing well and like the children he keeps it simple.
Surely that is a lesson for us all...
